Meg felt lucky she'd grown up in large crowds, as she'd otherwise drown in the various soirees and endless teas filled with Laverne and Roberte's society friends. However, something about the closer quarters here did make the team of rich matrons in Raoul and Christine's comfortable house a trifle unsettling.
She could see why someone naturally shy like Christine would find the atmosphere nigh unbearable.
All in all, though, Meg took it in stride. She grew up only dimly aware of the intricacies inherent in the aristocracy. Her mother made sure to teach her all the proper ranks and titles of the valued patrons in the opera's various audiences, and she was always respectful. But very rarely was she allowed to interact with them; she'd certainly never been taken into their private lives, despite her growing fame and acclaim.
In fact, her success was the very thing that usually precluded her from hobnobbing with the class of genteel old women around her now.
This ignorance kept her blissfully unaware in the weeks of her visit. She felt scarcely self-conscious at all. She flitted about the house as she did at the opera: quickly, blithely, chatty, everywhere at once. She did have the ability to play the wallflower, but Christine and Raoul's guests sensed she only periodically did so to better listen and learn, rather than out of any inherent respect for her betters.
And so they watched her, affronted and fascinated in equal turns. She'd answered their perfunctorily polite requests to see her dance without a trace of modest reticence, jumping up immediately to change into something far more revealing and perform as Christine played at the piano. Her movements were fabulously graceful and breathtaking, but the contrast between her sweet delicate beauty and fiery wanton movements sat strangely with the crowd before her.
Meg hummed now absent-mindedly as she knitted booties by Christine's side, breaking off only to giggle girlishly over some private joke with her friend.
To the fuming Laverne, who sat beside Meg along with Lady de Burgh and Comtesse Marille, this was on paper blatantly disrespectful behavior. For a girl of her class to sit there, giggling, humming, as her betters conversed was at the height of impropriety.
But then Meg raised her laughing, direct face to Laverne and that was what troubled Raoul's sister the most: the lack of mockery, of insolence. The presence instead of good-hearted frankness.
She wasn't what Laverne expected of a famous dancer, more a well-meaning but rambunctious child.
All she could do was sniff in disapproval. Christine shivered in loathing. She was used to that haughty little sound by now.
"Christine, my dear," Laverne said in that lofty tone so characteristic of her, "Should you be sitting so close to the bay windows? The sun is beating down on you terribly."
Christine went red and white at the same time. Meg did not possess the subtlety to detect the reasons behind the emotions of humiliation and frustration reflected in those contrasting shades: frustration at Laverne dictating her every move, and humiliation at her constantly highlighting her fragile state.
Still, though Meg did not understand the emotions now, she understood Christine felt them.
And so Meg thought nothing of saying in her bright tone, "My mother said sunlight did wonders for her when she was carrying me! And this comes from a woman who practically lives in the darkness backstage." Actually Madame Giry never mentioned any such thing to Meg, but who knows, she never said anything to the contrary. It might be true!
Laverne stiffened like a scalded cat. This little chit once again failed to even blush or tremble under the shameful weight of her contradiction; no, she had a happy little smile on her face as she nonchalantly returned to her needlework, humming, always humming.
It was the sight of Christine sighing her relief that froze Laverne's blood to its breaking point.
The comtesse was so bravely staunch in her long refusal to acknowledge her brother and his sly wife, but Roberte, damn her, Roberte…she'd worn her down.
Well. Partly.
There was a hidden avenue of true feeling within Laverne. One day she passed by Raoul's childhood bedroom, and that avenue of feeling urged her inside. She stared at the chest of toys, so full that the lid was halfway open, revealing long-neglected sailboats and toy soldiers within.
Instead of the red fury she saw whenever she dwelt on her only living brother, at that moment she saw a laughing, golden-haired little boy in rumpled sailor suit running carelessly around the patio, mimicking the sounds of stormy waves and cawing seagulls as he circled her and moved the sailboat up and down in the air, up and down….
Then she heard about the pregnancy.
That and a few more cringing words from Roberte solidified her new position. She would be beautifully magnanimous. With her stalwart and compassionate example, she would show Raoul all that he'd abandoned. By comparing the society of Laverne and her associates to the low wife he'd wed, she'd punish him far more deeply than stoic isolation.
Perhaps, at least, she could save the child's soul when it was born.
Her conviction wavered only slightly when she met Christine. Instead of some smirking slattern, the girl had the faraway trembling nature of a young doe, sweet, gentle, innocent. Her features were deceptively classical and refined, as if she weren't from a long line of rustic Swedish farmers and grubby Parisian slum-dwellers.
Laverne wanted to hate her for that. Instead she found that impossible. The girl's mournful brown eyes were like a slap in the face – a harsh reproach for all Laverne's assumptions.
This she stamped down, as Laverne stamped down all evidence of her misled life. All right, so she did not hate Christine Daae, but the contempt would stay as active as ever. Instead of cutting her down, she'd condescend to her, make her feel the inferiority of her position.
She'd been doing so splendidly so far. True, Christine had more spine than anticipated, holding her own in her quiet little way. But still, she was enough of a dreamy little thing to not object very strongly to Laverne quite quickly supplanting her in the household.
It was paramount that the child not be born amidst the chaos of a temperamental artist. It must be born amid order, order.
Then the damnable little ballerina came.
In a rush the sedate, quiet aura that Laverne and her trusted friends cultivated exploded in a flurry of girlish activity and high laughter. The grating little sprite was always here or there, always measuring curtains, suggesting garish colors for the wallpaper, buying doll upon gaudy doll for the infant (the dancer was irrationally convinced the child would be a girl), and always whispering something in Christine's ear that brought a conspiratorial grin to the heretofore sullenly obedient girl's face.
Laverne felt betrayed. She didn't dare express her concerns to Raoul. Her brother was still icily formal to her, something that broke certain parts of her heart, but also steeled her. Still, if she wanted to remain and influence the child's rearing, she needed to appease him, not upset him.
And so she sat and waited, hoping upon hope that this dancing doll with her short attention span would tire of respectable company and skip off from whence she came.
And yet here she was in her fancy clothes (far too fashionable and expensive for her surroundings), sitting resolutely at her friend's side.
Laverne's eyes narrowed in on Christine. No matter how soft-spoken the brunette may be, she had caused all this. The dancer would eventually go; Christine, however, must remain if the family wasn't to fall into even more ruin.
She must remember her place, lest she become too fresh with her betters.
And so Laverne spoke in her serenest tones. "Lucille, you mentioned you had a granddaughter who wanted to take up singing?"
As much as Lucille de Burgh was a dreadful bore of a woman, she was equally well-connected. Her sagging lids lifted off her murky eyes with the speed and dexterity of a tortoise. "Oh, yes, yes," she murmured, smiling her fishy unfocused smile. "Little Liza. She already has such a pretty little voice, but she wants to sing at recitals, don't you know. Just needs a little more training."
Laverne gave a sweet majestic smile to Christine. "Why, Christine, dear! You should instruct her."
Meg turned smiling to her friend. Meg felt sure this was a very generous effort on Laverne's part, a nod to Christine's talent. Perhaps they'd be friends now!
Meg's smile faded as she saw the look on her friend's face. The red was gone and she was now completely white. There was an angry grim fire in her eyes.
The gentle chatting among the old ladies continued, but Meg noted Christine never took her cold glare off Laverne.
"All right, what is it? You're still brooding on what Laverne said, I can tell. What's going on?"
Meg was brushing Christine's hair before bed, just as she used to when they were ballet rats together. The look on Christine's face was quite different from the wide-eyed wistfulness of then. She had the same fiery look of petulance she had before when Laverne had somehow offended her.
Christine stared doggedly into the mirror, nostrils slightly flared. "She insulted me."
Meg was confused. "How? I was there. I don't remember" –
"She asked me to teach one of her friend's children."
"Grandchildren. Really, Christine, what's wrong with that? I thought it was her way of reaching out."
Christine whirled around and the anger was gone but the hurt stared out plainly. "She meant to rub it in my face in front of all her high society friends that I worked for a living. She's – she's implying I'm like a servant to them. Not an equal."
"…Oh."
Christine turned back to her vanity and rested her forehead in her hand.
Meg spoke behind her. "I didn't realize. I mean, if that's her motive, that is quite hateful. But…well…why should you be ashamed you've worked? You should be proud, Christine. You've survived out there in the real would, and they haven't even tried. I think teaching what you've learned would be fantastic."
A soft hand on Christine's shoulder. "Don't you?"
Christine was very quiet. But she lifted her face from her hand and Meg saw a new look of thoughtfulness enter those deep eyes in the mirror.
The next day Meg sat drinking tea with a few of the ladies. Christine was upstairs resting. Meg fidgeted a little. Now that she hadn't Christine to fuss over, the dancer at last was feeling a little…awkward in this sedate and formal society.
She'd taken a bit to Raoul's second eldest sister, Roberte, so she conversed mostly with her. She was rather a silly old woman, but sweet and not nearly as judgmental as some of her peers.
She was regaling Meg with a story about a friend's disastrous engagement party from twenty years past when Madame de Rombard suddenly said, "Why, Sophie! You know who I just realized our dear Miss Giry reminds me of? Melanie!"
"Melanie Travert? Why, yes! Of course! I'm surprised I didn't see it before."
All eyes were on Meg. She blinked, for the first time a bit shy sitting in the spotlight. "…Oh?" Was all the young girl could think of to say.
Madame Jacqueline de Rombard was a haughty woman but overall rather pleasant. A bit more grounded than some of the other ladies, Meg thought. She looked at Meg speculatively but not unkindly. "You know, she greatly resembles all the Girard sisters, now that I think about it."
Meg's heart stopped at the name. Girard. Girard.
She cleared her throat, carefully putting down her scone on its little plate. "Who…who are the Girard sisters?" She asked in a thin voice.
Batting herself lazily with her fan, Madame Sophie Linville said in her low drawling voice, "Oh, the three Girard sisters: Collette, Aimee, and Melanie. Dear friends of ours, Miss Giry. They've always been rather noodle-headed excitable little things, but well-meaning. And yes, the resemblance between you and the three is quite marked: the petite frame, the mouth, the face shape. Your hair is redder where theirs are pure yellow, and their eyes are bright blue where yours are that charming greenish shade. They come from an old family of very good standing, though they moved from Paris long, long ago. Too many bad memories. Didn't stop the girls from all marrying quite well, though…"
Madame Celeste Bordelon tittered. She was a sickly little woman with a thin, pruney face. "You and Jacqui keep calling them girls, while Melanie, the youngest, is turning forty this year!"
"What sort of bad memories?" Meg interjected in what she hoped wasn't too eager a tone.
Madame Linville sighed in light regret. "Ah, that eldest child, the brother, Julien."
The room spun around Meg for a moment. She couldn't speak.
The ladies interpreted her pale stony expression as rapt attention, nothing more.
"No one quite knows what happened to him," Madame de Rombard put in.
"That's not true," Madame Linville insisted. "Everyone knows what happened, I'm shocked at you, Jacqui." She looked at Meg. "He was ambassador to Persia some twenty-four, twenty-five years ago, I'm not sure now. Something went wrong and the Persian court betrayed him, the shah sending assassins to kill him." She raised her eyebrows mournfully as she returned to her needlework. "Those monsters wouldn't even send the body home to the Girard family. He'd…had a strained relationship with his parents over the years. Political disagreements and the like. His father was – and is, the old goat still grasps at life – a grim, intractable man. The mother, too, though she's passed since. A pity they never had the chance to reconcile…I'm surprised we didn't go to war over the incident."
"If that is the true story," Madame de Rombard said ambiguously, sipping her tea.
"And what other story could there be?"
The lady shrugged. "Who knows? But the fact remains we have no concrete proof he was killed by assassins, and with his radical leanings…." She shrugged again. "Well, who's to say?" A wistful smile crossed her face. "Ah, but what a handsome man he was. Quite stole my young heart, he did."
Madame Bordelon sneered. "Yes, he was handsome, but quite full of himself, I thought. Always looked like he wanted to be elsewhere."
Madame de Rombard was more forgiving. "Not full of himself. Not really. More…introspective, I should say." She nodded, staring into the distance. "Yes, introspective. I'll wager he never found what he was looking for in France. Maybe in Persia, he did."
Meg did not hear the rest of the conversation.
She had aunts. Aunts and a grandfather.
She looked down at her shimmering turquoise grown and saw her little feet poking out from beneath: attached to her legs, undoubtedly more muscular than her aunts'.
And she felt as disconnected to the Girard family as a wild wolf pup does to a pampered group of Italian Greyhounds lounging on silken pillows.
Meg tossed and turned that night, sleep escaping her for a long time. When at last she succumbed, she dreamt not of her aunts, her grandfather, or her father. She was in the lair. Pipe organ music filled the dark misty air, but it wasn't the somber tone that usually issued from the underground abode. The tune was filled with something sweet and grand at the same time. It made her so happy to hear it.
She walked slowly toward Erik as he played. Her heart pounded in her head to see him again, even in a dream. His long tapered fingers danced over the keys like she did over the stage.
He wore his mask. Yet Meg did not try to take it away – why should she, when she knew what was underneath, and it bothered her not at all?
Instead she put a small soft hand on his shoulder. He started to turn around. "Meg…."
Her heart leapt.
"Meg…."
She frowned, confused. This voice was deeper than Erik's ethereal tenor –
"Meg, please wake up! It's time!"
She woke with a start. Raoul stood over her with hair mussed, candle in hand. He was in his robe. She heard the tense voices of the servants in the hallway, feet carrying swiftly in different directions.
Raoul's eyes were as wide and harried as one of their overexcited dogs. Meg looked at the clock. It was close to three o'clock in the morning.
She turned back to Raoul. "She wants you. It's – it's" – His smile held both excitement and fear.
Meg smiled, too. She jumped out of bed. "Have you sent for the doctor?"
"Doctor? Doctor! Oh, yes. The maid's gone."
Meg squeezed his hand. "Wonderful! Now let's go soothe the soon-to-be mama's nerves!"
Gustave de Chagny was born just a few minutes after one o'clock in the afternoon. It was a long labor and tough. At one point Christine had gripped Meg's hand so tightly the dancer would have feared it breaking if she could let in any other emotion besides concern for the sweating, peaked, moaning girl tossing on the bed.
"Meg," Christine croaked as the doctor instructed his nurse, "Meg, am I going to die?"
"Shh, shh," Meg whispered soothingly.
Meg's small cold hand was the only comfort for Christine in that sweltering room amidst blood and sweat.
In the last hour when he heard his wife scream, Raoul scandalized his sisters and their friends anew when he ceased pacing the drawing room and announced, "To hell with convention! I'm going to be with her."
The doctor and nurse frowned, but Christine's husband and friend would not be budged from where they both held each of her hands on opposite sides of the bed.
And now here was Gustave. He was a pale little thing, not quite cute, but already one could see he'd inherited his father's mop of golden hair.
Meg sat beside the bed as Christine, pale herself but smiling beautifully, beautifully, cradled little Gustave to her chest. "You're not too disappointed, are you, Meg?" She asked mischievously. "That you were wrong about the gender?"
Meg laughed. "I'd forgotten! The minute I saw this little fellow I forgot all about it." She kissed Gustave's blond head then leaned her cheek against it. "I love him."
Christine watched her friend, watched how she was with this darling boy in her arms, and the mother decided something. "Bring Raoul in, will you," she asked softly, playing with Meg's wavy locks.
Kissing the baby and her friend one more time, Meg hurried off and soon Raoul entered.
Although Gustave was not even a day old yet, Christine noticed that fatherhood had brought a new solemn sense of wonder to her husband. He kissed his wife deeply, but the two fingers he stroked his son's hair with were more gentle and tentative than a butterfly's wings.
"He's incredible…you're incredible," he said in a thick voice. He kissed her again. "You're feeling well?"
Christine nodded sleepily. "Tired, very tired. And I don't think I'll be up for any fast polska dances in the very near future."
She smiled down at her son. "But I'd say he's worth it."
In truth, Christine's ordeal had left her slightly numb emotionally, so she had as yet to truly take in the warm little bundle in her arms. But beneath the sleepy disorientation she could feel the fierce love there, burning. The fires stoked as the little one yawned.
Named for her father with his father's fair hair and blue eyes.
Mother and father stared quietly at their child, too moved to speak.
At last Christine said, "Raoul, I've been thinking about something. It concerns Meg and the baby…."
Three weeks later, Laverne was almost smiling in her satisfaction. The child was born and healthy, and looked far more like a de Chagny than she had feared. She would of course be announced as godmother, and so she could come and go freely as she wished, knowing that no matter how many outrageous opera friends Christine had over, Laverne would have final say over who influenced young Gustave.
More importantly at the moment, the Giry girl was leaving.
She was coming down now with her bags, as Raoul helped Christine down and their nurse brought Gustave.
Laverne stood with the few friends who had stayed after the birth. Although she disapproved wildly of the dancer, she would make sure Meg left impressed by the impeccable manners and good breeding of the family who'd hosted her.
Laverne cleverly hid her sneer, watching Roberte stupidly weep as she embraced the blonde. The older woman's idiotic timid heart was won over by the girl's pretty display of niceness during her visit. "Don't worry, I'll be back!" Meg said in her crisp little breathy voice.
Not if I have my say, little dear, Laverne thought to herself. Outwardly she only gave Meg a cold smirk and the loosest of handshakes. "Goodbye, Miss Giry. I hope you have an uneventful journey back to Paris."
Meg made a pathetic attempt at a curtsey, lopsided contented grin on her face. "Thank you, Comtesse! Pleasure to meet you all."
As soon as she said it she whirled around and squeezed Christine once more. The new mother had a look on her face that unsettled Laverne: serene, warm…and decided.
Christine's brown eyes followed Meg as impetuously she ran to Gustave and leaned her cheek against his soft head. "I love you, I love you, I love you," the girl whispered again and again to the child in what Laverne thought was an ostentatiously childish show.
Christine looked at Raoul, who nodded with a satisfied smirk of his own.
Christine quite calmly addressed the company around her. "Before my dearest friend leaves, I have an announcement to make."
The room fell quiet except for Gustave's gurgling.
Christine reached out a hand to Meg, eyes laughing affectionately. "Meg Giry, my husband and I have decided that there is no fitter godmother on earth for our little one than you."
Deep, deep silence.
Then Meg shrieked. She quickly covered her mouth, darting her eyes at the baby, who only fidgeted slightly in the nurse's arms.
Then with every inelegance, Meg flew into Christine's arms, the friends laughing into each other's hair.
Raoul's low laughter joined them as he patted Meg on the back. "Congratulations, flibbertigibbet!"
Roberte was not so unwise that she didn't worry about Laverne's reaction. She looked over.
Her sister's face was a white mask drained of all blood. Without taking her cold eyes from the happy trio before her, she said in an even voice to Roberte, "We leave tomorrow."
Turning on her heel, she left the room.